Solar power is going everywhere these days — homes, businesses, schools, even sewage plants. Howard County is beginning work this week installing about 740 photovoltaic panels at its Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant in Savage. The $1.5 million project will generate a fraction of the power needed by Maryland's fifth largest wastewater treatment plant. Its chief purpose, however, according to County Executive Ken Ulman, is to offset carbon emissions from big new diesel generators being installed to prevent sewage spills like the massive one triggered by Superstorm Sandy last year.

Solar power is going everywhere these days — homes, businesses, schools, even sewage plants. Howard County is beginning work this week installing about 740 photovoltaic panels at its Little Patuxent Water Reclamation Plant in Savage. The $1.5 million project will generate a fraction of the power needed by Maryland's fifth largest wastewater treatment plant. Its chief purpose, however, according to County Executive Ken Ulman, is to offset carbon emissions from big new diesel generators being installed to prevent sewage spills like the massive one triggered by Superstorm Sandy last year.

Amoco Corp. said yesterday that its Frederick-based Solarex Corp. solar power cell unit will merge with the solar business of Enron Corp. of Houston and that the joint venture will begin a search for a location for a new manufacturing plant.The new venture, called Amoco/Enron Solar, will be headquartered in Frederick. Each of the two corporate parents will own 50 percent, Solarex spokeswoman Sarah Howell said. Enron spokeswoman Diane Bazelides said no cash will change hands in the merger, which is to take effect Jan. 1.The merger will not have an immediate major impact on Solarex's Frederick facility, which employs about 230 people.

The whole controversy about burying electrical wires or trimming more trees misses one big point: If my tax dollars were spent supporting solar energy or solar cells that I could attach to my house, instead of building killer drones, the whole problem is gone. No grid, no poles, no wires. It works for phones, doesn't it? Of course there would also be no "juice" for the politicians, but we have to look beyond the miserable choices they give us to a renewable future. Bill Barry, Baltimore

The whole controversy about burying electrical wires or trimming more trees misses one big point: If my tax dollars were spent supporting solar energy or solar cells that I could attach to my house, instead of building killer drones, the whole problem is gone. No grid, no poles, no wires. It works for phones, doesn't it? Of course there would also be no "juice" for the politicians, but we have to look beyond the miserable choices they give us to a renewable future. Bill Barry, Baltimore

Maryland: Earnings United Industrial profit rises 112.2% Hunt Valley-based United Industrial Corp. reported strong results for the fourth quarter and 2006, boosted by contracts related to its military drones and training simulators. Fourth-quarter profit soared 112.2 percent to $22.1 million, or $1.55 a share, from $10.4 million, or 77 cents per diluted share, a year earlier, largely due to an $8.4 million gain realized from the sale of its Detroit Stoker Co. energy business in December, which contributed 57 cents to earnings.

Southern California Edison and Texas Instruments Inc. announced yesterday a potential breakthrough in technology that could dramatically reduce the cost of solar-generated electricity.The new photovoltaic technology, developed in six years of secretive research, is aimed at producing low-cost solar roof panels for residential use. The material looks more like flexible metallic sandpaper than the rigid blue solar cells that have become a familiar part of calculators, highway call boxes and remote communications towers.

An odd, wedge-shaped vehicle built by College Park students began a 1,100-mile -- across the Midwest yesterday, fueled only by the power of sunshine.The University of Maryland's sleek, lightweight "Pride of Maryland II" joined a field of 33 other solar cars, which were to switch on electric motors at 9 a.m. for the first leg of a seven-day race from Arlington, Texas, to Minneapolis.The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring the contest, called "Sunrayce 93," which pits teams from 34 North American colleges and universities against each other in a test of engineering skill, solar car technology and road-racing skill.

I t's tempting to see BP Solar's Maryland factory as a casualty of the global-warming wars. The December Copenhagen summit on greenhouse gases was a dud. Congress shows few signs of regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Now BP Solar is closing its Frederick solar-panel plant three years after announcing a big expansion. But the factory's fate might say more about the recession and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness than about the future of solar energy. Solar-panel manufacturing is thriving, just not in places like Frederick.

Washington. -- Thirty years ago, the invention of small-scale technologies such as portable electric-power generators and radio phones led to the dream of a planet in which people would consume less and waste less, sharing the earth's bounty under an ethic known as ''small is beautiful.''Solar cells would open pasture gates or irrigation channels; remote villages would be alerted to impending storms, pests or the changing market prices of their crops; television would bring primary and high school education where there were no roads or schools.

I t's tempting to see BP Solar's Maryland factory as a casualty of the global-warming wars. The December Copenhagen summit on greenhouse gases was a dud. Congress shows few signs of regulating or taxing carbon dioxide emissions. Now BP Solar is closing its Frederick solar-panel plant three years after announcing a big expansion. But the factory's fate might say more about the recession and U.S. manufacturing competitiveness than about the future of solar energy. Solar-panel manufacturing is thriving, just not in places like Frederick.

Maryland: Earnings United Industrial profit rises 112.2% Hunt Valley-based United Industrial Corp. reported strong results for the fourth quarter and 2006, boosted by contracts related to its military drones and training simulators. Fourth-quarter profit soared 112.2 percent to $22.1 million, or $1.55 a share, from $10.4 million, or 77 cents per diluted share, a year earlier, largely due to an $8.4 million gain realized from the sale of its Detroit Stoker Co. energy business in December, which contributed 57 cents to earnings.

The ship of the future, as imaged by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, the world's biggest ocean carrier of automobiles and heavy machinery, would work like a horse, carrying 10,000 cars in its belly. But it would move like a dolphin, using wind, sun, waves and some hydrogen, instead of diesel fuel, for propulsion, leaving behind nothing but heat and vapor in the air and water. For now, the E/S Orcelle, the environmentally sound ship named for an endangered dolphin, is nothing more than a concept and isn't likely to become part of the world fleet of cargo ships any time soon.

Amoco Corp. said yesterday that its Frederick-based Solarex Corp. solar power cell unit will merge with the solar business of Enron Corp. of Houston and that the joint venture will begin a search for a location for a new manufacturing plant.The new venture, called Amoco/Enron Solar, will be headquartered in Frederick. Each of the two corporate parents will own 50 percent, Solarex spokeswoman Sarah Howell said. Enron spokeswoman Diane Bazelides said no cash will change hands in the merger, which is to take effect Jan. 1.The merger will not have an immediate major impact on Solarex's Frederick facility, which employs about 230 people.

An odd, wedge-shaped vehicle built by College Park students began a 1,100-mile -- across the Midwest yesterday, fueled only by the power of sunshine.The University of Maryland's sleek, lightweight "Pride of Maryland II" joined a field of 33 other solar cars, which were to switch on electric motors at 9 a.m. for the first leg of a seven-day race from Arlington, Texas, to Minneapolis.The U.S. Department of Energy is sponsoring the contest, called "Sunrayce 93," which pits teams from 34 North American colleges and universities against each other in a test of engineering skill, solar car technology and road-racing skill.

Washington. -- Thirty years ago, the invention of small-scale technologies such as portable electric-power generators and radio phones led to the dream of a planet in which people would consume less and waste less, sharing the earth's bounty under an ethic known as ''small is beautiful.''Solar cells would open pasture gates or irrigation channels; remote villages would be alerted to impending storms, pests or the changing market prices of their crops; television would bring primary and high school education where there were no roads or schools.

It's not near-sighted kangaroos or the hot desert sun that worries students from the University of Maryland as they prepare to race their solar car, the Pride of Maryland, through the Australian outback beginning this weekend.The concern is "road trains," huge trucks pulling four or more trailers along the 1,900 miles of highway between Darwin and Adelaide and creating vicious crosswinds when they roar by that can upset lightweight vehicles like the sleek, fragile College Park car."We designed for it, we think, but not everybody did," said Craig Hampson, 20, a junior in mechanical engineering who is now with his teammates in Australia awaiting the starting gun. "There are some friendly wagers about who's going to get blown off the road."

The ship of the future, as imaged by Wallenius Wilhelmsen Logistics, the world's biggest ocean carrier of automobiles and heavy machinery, would work like a horse, carrying 10,000 cars in its belly. But it would move like a dolphin, using wind, sun, waves and some hydrogen, instead of diesel fuel, for propulsion, leaving behind nothing but heat and vapor in the air and water. For now, the E/S Orcelle, the environmentally sound ship named for an endangered dolphin, is nothing more than a concept and isn't likely to become part of the world fleet of cargo ships any time soon.

Southern California Edison and Texas Instruments Inc. announced yesterday a potential breakthrough in technology that could dramatically reduce the cost of solar-generated electricity.The new photovoltaic technology, developed in six years of secretive research, is aimed at producing low-cost solar roof panels for residential use. The material looks more like flexible metallic sandpaper than the rigid blue solar cells that have become a familiar part of calculators, highway call boxes and remote communications towers.

It's not near-sighted kangaroos or the hot desert sun that worries students from the University of Maryland as they prepare to race their solar car, the Pride of Maryland, through the Australian outback beginning this weekend.The concern is "road trains," huge trucks pulling four or more trailers along the 1,900 miles of highway between Darwin and Adelaide and creating vicious crosswinds when they roar by that can upset lightweight vehicles like the sleek, fragile College Park car."We designed for it, we think, but not everybody did," said Craig Hampson, 20, a junior in mechanical engineering who is now with his teammates in Australia awaiting the starting gun. "There are some friendly wagers about who's going to get blown off the road."